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Everyday Objects Placed In a Microwave
Tom writes "Everyday objects can produce interesting effects when you stick them in a standard microwave. Grapes spark, matches create superheated plasma fireballs, mini lightning-bolts arc between sheets of aluminum foil, and soap both splits open and puffs up, creating a somewhat vulgar spurt of bubbly excrement that has to be seen to be fully appreciated. However, as cool as microwave experimentation can be, balls of plasma and the like are bad for both your eyes and your microwave, so it's probably best not to try these things at home. update This site apparently is behind a really nasty popup that I missed (yay Firefox) the first time through. You've been warned... here it is but given the overall rottenness of the pop-up, I guess I wouldn't bother. Some folks know no shame. My apologies to the readers.
I remember one time when I was on a weekend drinking session in Belgium, one of my friends proposed that microwaves only heat up objects with water in it. So the digital photocamera should withstand 10 seconds of radiation... I was allready passed out at the moment and learned from the disaster the next day.
A few months later I decided to check whether the flashcard still worked. It did! After viewing the photo's and movies we made before frying the camera, we could remember a lot more about that night:P
I'm tired of all the Microsoft/Novell stuff, NASA going to asteroids, the latest PS3 updates, etc.
FINALLY... information that matters to ME in such a way that the whole Britney/Fed-Ex stuff seems to matter to everyone in the US.
(and in case you think I'm being sarcastic and mod me -1 Troll... no, I'm serious...I am very excited about an article about putting various things in Microwaves...I like the patterns it makes on CDs, and I like the electrical storm that the "split grape" shows)
(and yeah, after Dave Barry mentioned toasters & pop-tarts...I did that TOO...my wife was not happy)
(now if only I could get my hands on some liquid Oxygen for the barbeque)
get a casette tape and cheap mini player stick both in the microwave and play the tape. the tape turns cool colors and then the batteries explode!
I once burned a hole in the top of a microwave admiring a big plasma blob that was created with cigar smoke. Fortunately it was a MW at work which I owned. I've also exploded numerous lightbulbs (small explosions) in the MW, zapped many cd's etc. Turning a clear pyrex bowl upside down and slightly propped up on one side on the MW turntable will help contain the plasma blob until the bowl breaks or melts. Very cool, I mean hot.
I viewed it with FF2, and I wasn't aware of any links or popups on the page. I went straight to the videos. I don't think it was anything FF did though (maybe the popup blocking), because I have a ginormous HOSTS file blocking just about everything.
Kid you not. Green olives will spark in the microwave. Place three in a circle with the orange center (forgot what that's called) close to each other and nuke em. Sparks will fly!
1;
A friend accidentally learned that it's not a good idea to put just any type of mug in a microwave oven.
:)
One night, he was staying overnight in the lab and became hungry so he decided to cook instant noodles using the microwave oven. He got a mug, choosing probably the one nearest the oven, put some water and noodles, and placed them in the oven to cook. It turned out that the mug is actually a metal cup covered with plastic with an attached plastic holder. As expected, the mug heated up so much that the plastic melted and left the mug in a funny, distorted shape.
Unfortunately for him, the mug has a sentimental value to the owner since it was given by another labmate. He was forced to become an assistant to that labmate in a talk in order to replace the mug with an exact copy.
The funny and ironic thing is we are both physics majors and members of an instrumentation physics research lab (the lab that I'm talking about). The owner of the mug is also the professor in the optics course we are taking during that time.
The moral of the story: be extra careful when you're hungry
I used to zap CDs in the microwave, both for the show (it's cool to watch) and the results (the cd looks cool afterward). I was one of the few people who actually looked forward to a new AOL sign-up cd.
I haven't nuked a cd in years, mostly because it smells awful. But if anyone out there hasn't tried it, you should, and make sure you open your windows and get a fan, and be prepared for a smelly kitchen for a day or so. It's very cool to watch a cd inside a microwave - for a brief moment you'll see a wave of electricity spread from one side to the other, right across the surface of the cd. And afterward, the pattern will remain etched onto the aluminum of the cd itself, so you'll have a cool looking cd.
Trial and error shows that you'll get the best results by keeping the microwave time to a bare minimum, maybe only 1 second.
Better yet, take the ball of plutonium and form two hemispheres of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around it to fit closely. Put the ball in one hemisphere. Then, using a screwdriver as a spacer, lower the other hemisphere over the plutonium ball. Make sure not to slip. If you see a blue flash from Cerenkov radiation inside your eyeballs, write your will after you've stopped barfing.
(They actually did similar experiments at Los Alamos in the 40s. And, yes, the screwdriver did eventually slip. Not only once, but two people actually got "bit by the dragon."
-b.